After a month, the driver who ran away after he struck down three youths, resulting in the death of one and injuries to the others, is still at large and the survivors are calling on him to surrender.
According to Deputy Superintendent Ramesh Ashram, the police are currently following some leads that may assist in the arrest of the driver, Asif Khan.
On December 21, in the vicinity of the Princess Hotel at Providence, East Bank Demerara, 18-year-old Parmanand Deokaran, also known as, “Jonny” or “Rago” of Success, East Coast Demerara, died on his way to the hospital after he was struck down along with his two friends, Davendra Mangal, 20, and Kayshawn Ramnarine, 17.
Khan fled the scene on foot after the accident, leaving the three youths in a nearby trench.
Since their discharge from city hospitals, the two survivors are having difficulty coping with their day to day lives.
When Stabroek News visited Ramnarine yesterday, he was sitting in his living room reading a newspaper. He was resting his injured right foot, still in a cast, on a makeshift bench.
Ramnarine said he reads the newspapers every day to see if the driver has been caught or has surrendered.
“Because of that man (driver), I lost a very good friend. Till now, I can’t lift no weights or press on my foot. I got a steel in my arm and one in my foot. I want he surrender so he can pay for what he did,” Ramnarine said.
Ramnarine’s mother added that she is finding it difficult since her husband alone is working. The situation was so overbearing that she fell ill.
“I done get it hard. Because of this thing I tek on and I even get sick. Every time I have to take him (Ramnarine) to the hospital, I have to pay $6,000 and it’s hard by only he father working… and by running behind him and thing. All the stress, I get sick…,” she said.
Meanwhile, Davendra Mangal, told Stabroek News that he had informed his boss that he would be turning out to work yesterday for the first time since the accident. However, because of intense headaches and pains about his body, he is now convinced that he won’t be returning to work anytime soon as he had promised.
“…Remember, I get a fracture skull, you know, so, I get headache easy… bad pain in my shoulder and my knee. Plus, I get swing head (dizziness) if I stand up too long,” Mangal said, while clutching onto his front gate.
“I want the driver give up himself. I mean, if he had give we help when he knock we down, at least you know. But he kill my friend and me and that boy was good friends…,” he said.
Mangal also questioned if the police are doing all they could as he inquired if it was possible that the police could put up a reward for the runaway driver.
Asked if he remembered anything that morning of the accident, he replied, “All I remember was that we was walking out of the hotel and when I wake up I was in a ambulance and then I drift off again. When I wake up after that, I was in the hospital.”
